


Across the Ice

by velvel



Category: Original Work, The Sentinel
Genre: 13th Century CE, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, M/M, Sentinel/Guide, Sentinel/Guide Bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 17:43:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13323228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velvel/pseuds/velvel
Summary: At the battle of Lake Peipus, a Teutonic Knight encounters the man he has been looking for. And the man he's been looking for is armed with a bow of birch wood, sinew and bone.





	Across the Ice

**Author's Note:**

> This is an original Sentinel/Guide au that takes place in the 13th century, because I can't help myself. Considering the era and cultures involved, the characters use different words for sentinel and guide.
> 
> For Wolther, sentinels (and subsequently their guides) are wards of the Catholic church, so sentinels and guides are referred to in Latin. Sentinels are called Sentir, which we will pretend is a nominalization of the verb sentire, because the Latin noun that most accurately translates into sentinel is not aesthetically pleasing to me. Guides are referred to as Dux.
> 
> Yellig is a Khazar steppe nomad. Khazaric is an extinct language with few surviving records, and even if it weren’t, it’d probably be beyond my ken. It was a Turkic language, though, and so for Yellig and his people I use the modern Turkish words Koruyucu for sentinel and Danışman for guide. To Turkish speakers, I apologize profusely.
> 
> My hope is that this will be a relatively short work (3 chapters at most) and completed soon. Tags will be added as I add chapters, but seeing this is a work by me, and also sentinel/guide, dubious content will be likely, so take heed.

Wolther Rudiger is born the son of an executioner. 

His father is the hangman of Nuremberg, and his father's father a hangman before him; his mother, too, the daughter of a hangman - for no virtuous woman would give herself in marriage to an executioner, and if she had no other choice, would gladly go to martyrdom instead.

Hangmen are forbidden from entering church grounds, so that when Wolther is born, the Rudigers must bribe a local priest to visit their house for a baptism. He comes in the dead of night, and Hans Rudiger's coin is slid across table, so that the Father need not disgrace himself by touching an executioner's hand.

No man is born sinless. It is only that some are born more sinful than others, and still others are destined to bear sin for the sake of earthly kingdoms. From his first breath, Wolther is never wholly innocent. Even before he is old enough to make first confession, and long before he kills a man: it is enough to be born into an executioner dynasty, to mark Wolther for life. Hangman's scion, he is the nobility of the unclean. Under any other circumstance, no other profession would be permitted him, no other path to eternal life. 

For although it is dishonorable, the blood of Christ saves all men, and by punishing sin, a hangman does the work of the Lord. 

But it is well known that his closeness to death makes the hangman a powerful magician; that many who shun him on the street arrive surreptitiously at his door, seeking a cure to what ails them. As a boy, Wolther watched the ill and infirm gather beneath a fresh beheading, where his father portioned out bowls of the poor sinner's blood, renowned for its healing properties. They walk a fine line, the hangmen: between life and death, pride and dishonor, power and ruin. 

So it comes as no surprise - though it disturbs many - when Wolther Rudiger passes out on the day he first kills with a sword, and awakens a Sentir, holy unto God.

***

Eight days after Yellig is born, he is circumcised, and his foreskin buried in the steppe. He thinks of it as an offering to a God he understands, one of great open spaces, where blue sky meets brown earth in a flatness uninterrupted as far as the eye can see.

He is told that because he is a Jew, he believes in only one true God, a God of gods, and that this God has no face, at least not as humans would know it. From what Yellig understands of holiness - the steppe that ate his foreskin - a single all encompassing God of nothingness makes sense, so he accepts what they say: that he is a Jew. Later, he learns that in the west Jews are not warriors, but spend their time within walled confines, studying Torah. As far as he knows, Yellig has never heard a word of Torah in his life, and spends his time beneath the sky, studying horse and recurved bow. 

Walls that cannot be readily torn down frighten Yellig, like a rabbit in a snare.

His mother dies in childbirth. His father is unknown.

When Yellig thinks back, his first memory is that of being lifted onto the back of a horse. He is a boy in this memory, with a strong spine - already able to stand and walk on his own. He is sure that he sat on a horse even before then, even before his own memory begins. Yellig has helped women of his tribe hold up their babies, like sacks of flour, onto the backs of his most patient ponies; and their feeling of motherly cheer is vaguely familiar to him, like being possessed by the ghost of kin. The tribe raises him, as one, and they are a horse people, his tribe. Strong ponies are their servants, their protectors. They learn to ride before they walk. They learn to speak a language of large eyes, shifting ears, warm snorts and twitching flesh.

The men who come to collect tribute call them Khazars, the remnants of a great kingdom long ago conquered by the Rus. This makes little impression on Yellig, who suspects that great kingdoms come and go like the snow. Other than that, he knows nothing of sedentary power. Kingdoms imply laying claim to a territory, settling one place and staying put. Building permanent foundations and roofs with no tono, through which one can see the sky. Yellig does not own the steppe: the steppe owns him, and his tribe moves camp as the steppe sees fit. Horses are ravenous grazers, and so they go where ever God gives them grazing. 

It is up to the horse, the steppe and God. This makes them difficult to find, the last of the Khazars.

As a boy, Yellig is only vaguely aware that they are the vassals of a far-away Russian prince, until the day a party of Slav warriors arrive at their camp. Yellig's tribe has not paid tribute in five years: they are small and difficult to hold accountable, often more costly to hunt down than they're worth. But the Russians come because they need new horse stock, to strengthen the hooves of their own, and more men who shoot well while riding them. 

Camp is tense when the warriors arrive, and make their way to the tent of the Bey. Yellig knows this, can hear it in the way camp goes unnaturally quiet, save for a whirlwind of dark whispers. But at twelve, Yellig has no mind for politics and its discontents. He is all eyes for the Russian horses. They are huge, bigger than any he has ever seen, and sleek, unlike his tribe's shaggy steppe ponies. Yellig feels a tingling thrill down the back of his neck. He is milking a mare when the Russians ride past, and abandons this chore to watch as they take up formation outside the Bey's tent. 

An emissary dismounts and enters the tent, leaving his warriors behind to stare down the men of the tribe. They surround the Russians, who seem too confident for men in such a vulnerable a position. They face each other over a few feet of empty ground, which no one dares cross, like a river cutting deep between two mountains. Yellig pushes through the crowd of tribesmen and crosses that river, rushing for the other side before anyone can reach out a hand to stop him. 

He runs for the biggest horse, and feels a spark of alarm - from the tribesmen, his brothers - and, sharply, from the large blonde Slav whose horse he approaches. Yellig hesitates, confused, looking up at the man, and the horse steps back, sensing her rider's surprise. Zachai, their tribe's only koruyucu, shouts at him to get away. Yellig snaps out of it. He spits over his shoulder at Zachai, causing a commotion. Someone laughs. The horse wickers, and he turns to her. 

Yellig coos and clucks at the great horse until she bows her head to him, the Slav letting go of her reins. He strokes gently down the milk white marking on her face, and presses his forehead to her muzzle, breathing in her hot breath with his own. He feels the tension ease from her, and become mirth: and when he looks up again, the big Slav warrior smiles down at him, knowing and amused. 

When the emissary returns, exiting the tent, the Slav warrior points down at Yellig and the two have a short, serious conversation about him. Yellig's hand slips from the horse's neck. He hears the word _dux_ spoken more than once. He tries to slip away. The emissary grabs his arm. Zachai shouts, and knocks an arrow in one fluid, formidable motion. He aims at the Slav warrior, thumb pulled to his eyes: a close, and deadly shot. The Slav draws his sword, face tight.

Yellig begins to cry, because the fear is too much, but it's not his fear, not his tears. That scares him more than all else - that suddenly he can feel, in his own chest, the fear of everyone around, as wind over the steppe feels every blade of grass. 

Jachin, Zachai's wife and danışman, steps out of the Bey's tent and walks between her husband and the Slav warrior. She looks at Zachai, until he lowers his bow. Then she speaks with the emissary. She explains that Yellig is too young, and slaps the back of his head when, sniffing, Yellig protests that he is almost thirteen. She makes promises to the emissary, who releases Yellig. Jachin pulls him toward her. The emissary turns to put a hand on the Slav warrior's thigh, and they converse, quietly, leaning toward one another. Yellig stares at this touch, dumbfounded, as a new sensation steals into his body, strange and unfamiliar, and terrifying and alive.

He has no word for it, and he's afraid to ask.

The Russians leave with their tribe's strongest ponies, and many of their best young men, including Zachai. Jachin is left behind. She stands beside Yellig, and they watch as the party prepares to go. Her fingers dig into his shoulder. Zachai's face is stone, though he aches like a man being trampled to death. The big Slav bends forward in his saddle to ruffle Yellig's hair as they pass. Yellig wets his lips. 

"Jachin," he says, "is that man my koruyucu?" 

Jachin draws in a short, shaky breath.

"No. The emissary was his danışman."

"Oh," he says. He is worried about the ponies.

Abruptly, Jachin turns him around so that they are face to face, and Yellig almost loses his footing. He can feel her pain, like he can feel the rough weave of his coat. He looks down in embarrassment. Yellig doesn't understand, but he has an idea that Jachin and Zachai have made a great sacrifice for his sake. She touches his chin, forces his eye back to her own dark gaze.

"Had he been," she says, "nothing would have stopped him."

He thinks about this. Jachin is not one of them - Khazar, Jew - but a Mongol from Karakorum. Zachai rode far, fought hard, and killed many to claim her, or so he tells it over the fire at night. Boasting, a bore of a story Yellig has heard many times over a thousand miles. 

Jachin shakes him.

"Do you understand me, boy?"

He nods, unsure.

She shakes her head, and lets him go, as if letting go of sand through her fingers.

"Bring me my bow," she says.

He wants to ask for her side of the tale: how far is it to Karakorum, truly, and what happened to her life there? Who was it Zachai had to kill?

She shoves him hard. "Go!"

He retrieves her bow, and a quiver full of arrows with various fletching. She sends a signalling arrow into the sky at a high angle, and they stand below and listen to its angry shriek.

"They're far past the horizon," he says, doubtful.

Jachin casts him a sharp look, like she thinks him hopelessly stupid.

"He heard it," she says. "What, you think the end of the steppe is the end of the world?"

She kicks at the dirt.

Isn't it, he wonders.

"Find the arrow," she says, because a good arrow should never go to waste. A good arrow can be shot by a bad bow, but even a good bow is useless with a bad arrow, or none at all. 

"Why did they take Zachai, and not you?"

Yellig squints at the grass, tries to determine the distance of her shot.

"Because no matter where we go, he will find me. When the time comes," she says.

He doesn't ask when that time will be. When the Rus will return to collect tribute once more. He rubs at his eyes, which are dry now but still ache from the fears of his entire tribe, and he goes out onto the steppe, tired, and starts to harden his heart for a long, patient search. 

***

Hans Rudiger's judgment sword is long and heavy, more than half Wolther's height and at least seven pounds; deceptively light until it must be held steady over the neck of a man condemned to die. Wolther learns to clean it years before he is allowed to practice its killing motions, eagerly wiping blood from the grooves of a Latin engraving on the blade: _Nolite timere: num Dei possumus resistere voluntati?_ The inscription is a mystery to Wolther, who knows no Latin, and his father refuses to tell him the meaning - says he will understand it in time.

The sword is a paradox of their profession, for the right to carry a sword is a noble privilege, and yet, it is a necessary tool of their ignoble trade. To be beheaded is the highest honor afforded a poor sinner, and it must be done with skill. An executioner who swings twice risks being torn apart by a furious mob. Wolther has heard of it happen before, to those whose weakness entices them to drink before an execution. His father is the best of them all, powerful and sober, and when he beheads a man he makes it look easy, a gesture as simple as genuflection.

Wolther is thirteen when Hans deems him old enough to wield the judgment sword. He is large and uncommonly muscular for his age: though he can't be friends with the local boys, he can race them and beat them at wrestling, and the fist fights that come with being hangman's son. He's strong, but his first swings are clumsy anyway, requiring the use of new muscles and a focus he's never had to handle before. When his father suggests waiting another year, Wolther squares his shoulders and insists. He can do it. He will.

They begin with pumpkins and gourds, before moving on to rhubarb stalks, which cut more like the neck of a man. Their neighbors pass by fast, feigning disinterest in the morbid rituals being acted out in Meister Rudiger's courtyard. Wolther's hands blister, which break and sting with his sweat. He never had soft hands, having always worked, around the house or with his father, but now they become irreversibly calloused and hard, the hands of a man who wants something enough to suffer for it.

Over the weeks, his motions become more fluid, and his aim sure, as if second nature - at which point his father brings him a pig.

It is big, and slow, and Wolther feels no qualms about killing it. Afterward his family will eat the choicest parts for supper. The pig plays in the corner of their yard. It's a hot day, and the sun strikes Wolther as exceedingly bright. He wipes sweat from his forehead, and then shade his eyes. He watches the pig roll around in dirt. 

"It is an insensible animal," his father says, as if comforting him.

"I know," Wolther snaps.

His father hums, ponderous.

"I don't doubt your courage, son."

Wolther feels a swell of pride, and then shame at his childish petulance. He turns to his father, attentive. "What then?"

"Only that one day it won't be an insensible animal. It will a man facing you, and your sword."

Wolther wipes his palms on his tunic, and takes the judgment sword from his father, still in its wood and leather sheath. His arms are even stronger than they were before, and the sword's weight seems like nothing. "I don't think think I'll miss," he says, "Or need to swing twice."

He thinks of the rhubarb stalks, and their stringy resistance.

"Lord willing, no," Hans says, "But it is one thing to talk of killing a man, as princes and judges do, and another thing entirely to deliver the judgment. It's hard: the first time most of all. There is something in a man - Christ's mercy, perhaps - that rebels against it."

"But he'll be a sinner," Wolther protests, shocked by his father's confession. 

"And his sentence just, yes," Hans says, "I only wish to prepare you, Wolther. Are you ready?"

He unsheathes the sword. The polished wood of the sheath feels oddly grainy, and the sun on the steel of the blade burns his eyes. His head pounds with a dull ache, but Wolther is ready. He is prepared.

His father holds the pig. It has strangely human eyes.

He brings down the blade.

There's a squeal, whether before or after, Wolther is unsure. It splits through his entire being.

And he falls.


End file.
